A chip card is a card-like device formed primarily of plastic having a credit card format, which has incorporated therein an electronic device or semi-conductor chip. This semi-conductor chip may, for instance, store password data or identifying code data or bank or telephone account data. It may also store account balance information, or be encoded with a "value" which may be used in transactions instead of money, or may be incremented by the purchase of extra "value" points. As compared with magnetically encoded stripes, semi-conductor chips may provide greater security against destruction and/or change of data. In addition, the provision of electronic circuits allows increased data storage and, under certain circumstances, additional functionality. These electronic devices, as well as their interface with associated information reading and recording apparatus, are well known, and need not be explained in detail. The present invention relates to a method of applying decorative graphics to smart cards, and is adaptable to the various smart card formats.
Cards are used by the issuers as advertising supports and also are identified through their surface markings, such as multicolor graphics. In this connection, increasingly greater demands are being made on the design and the nature of the surface of the cards. Thus, these surface marking serve a number of purposes. First, the markings serve to identify the card to both the user and to a merchant. Second, the markings serve to make the cards difficult to counterfeit. Finally, the markings serve to promote the issuer or sponsor of the card. Thus, while the graphics essentially do not affect the function of the card related to the associated electronics, they nevertheless serve an important purpose. Further, the graphics may also be used for positioning the card during its use, and to provide information or instructions.
German Unexamined Patent Application DE OS 31 30 135, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method for the manufacture of a chip card with data-processing functions, which has a semiconductor chip in which the casting around the support card and the installation of the chip are carded out in two operating steps. The decoration of the chip card is not described in DE OS 31 30 135.
Ordinarily, the card, provided with a chip, is provided with decoration in a separate step, and at a separate station in the manufacturing apparatus, from where the plastic card is molded with the electronic circuit embedded in the card. The need for the expensive and difficult three-dimensional matching of finished chip supports and the applied decoration is a disadvantage in this connection. Thus, the chip cards are subjected to an expensive, time-intensive process after the chip is imbedded in the card.